They were for the right to choose one's associates, but in the same breath they wanted the government to weild its coercive force to prevent a black person and a white person from marrying one another.

You DO understand that this campaign was waged in 1948, don't you? You are also aware, I assume that we are nearing the end of the year 2002. What is your obsession with this matter? If you ask me the violence and hatred exhibited in Boston because of bussing was much worse than anything I saw in the South. So what's your point?

I remember after we had integrated our schools with out violence, I see several years later in the land of Teddy Kennedy Irish youth are burning their buses, and killing blacks..... I tell you we laughed at the hypocracy we were seeing... In fact Martin Luther King said the racism he observed in Chicago was worse than any he had every seen in the south.
Would that these "good People" would admit that they have as many skeletons in there closets... Oh yes and lets not forget the race riots in New York City in 1863 after Gettsburg where blacks were lynched in NYC....
Give me a break!!!!!

The point is that Trent Lott probably still doesn't understand the gravity of what he said. Many here at FR don't. They say, "Oh Thurmond was for strong national defense, reducing wasteful government spending-- that's what Lott was talking about."

No, that's not what he was talking about and he knows it. Why does everyone think Lott is an ignoramus? He didn't just fall off the turnip truck. He got a juris doctorate. He knows what is in this platform. He knew what he was saying. He was only stupid to blurt it out.

They were for the right to choose one's associates, but in the same breath they wanted the government to weild its coercive force to prevent a black person and a white person from marrying one another.

To be more specific, they wanted to prevent the Federal government from repealing state miscegenation laws.

Many people here believe that states have the right to tell people what they can put in their body, even if the Federal government does not. I wonder if those same people would argue that the state does not have the right to tell people whom they can and cannot marry.

How can you not care that Lott is a bigot? Can you really say with a straight face that a white Mississippi lawyer (one good enough to eventually end up in the Senate) has no idea what the Dixiecrat Party was about?

Does anyone actually think Lott has put this behind him? Tomorrow there will be another example of his "racism." Then another the day after that. Then another and another.

And now Lott has handed over his personal problem to the entire Republican Party. The GOP Senators have given him a pass for applauding the Dixiecrats. Therefore the GOP is now the party that will actively abide racist sentiments.

All the work we have done to prove we aren't racist has been set aside to save this feckless, vacillating, spineless, toupeed mediocrity.

We are the stupid party. We will suffer dearly for the hubris and selfishness of Trent Lott. And all we will get in return is Lott's severe pandering to the Black Caucus to "prove" he isn't racist. I hope you Lott-backers like Affirmative Action.

Say hello to the new senate majority leader, I mean the new and former senate majority leader--Tom Daschle. You are fighting to lose the senate without an election. I will not listen to you b!tch once the senate has gone back to dem hands. Then you will see what gridlock really is.

Get ready for some more race-baiting, coming your way thanks to people like...MonroeDNA!

"Many people here believe that the states have the right to tell people what they can put in their body..."

Ah, Geez. Read the XXI*st Amendment.

The XIV*th Amendment squelches your desire to have states tell people who they can and cannot marry, since marriage in the US is a matter of civil law regarding life, liberty and property, among other things.

geez, give it up. lott isn't a bigot. who cares if he is? 54 years ago, you'd think he had just voted in that race. in my view, he was talking to strom like men in the south do, showing respect and razzing at the same time. it's a shame a person has to guard every word they say, especially when they just aren't bad people.
and please tell me, are people who accuse people of being racist any better than the people they are accusing?????

He is not a bigot. He said a bone-headed comment. Lott was what, 7 years old in 1948? You are GIVING the senate back to the dems by demanding Lott resign.

Tell me, who will be the next person to be called a 'bigot'? I know it won't be a dem. This is an exercise in winning the election Nov. 5th and losing the senate without another election. Keep it up, you could have us Hillary by 2004.

Everyone knows this is just "I gotta" demogogery. What a person says spontaneously should NEVER be used to judge them, it is insidious and mean to do so. The only way to judge Lott is by his record over the last 15 to 20 years. Hopefully that record is solid or why was he ever given the power he has. We live in a society which has replaced logic, science, and thought with superstition, dogma, and fear.

He is not a bigot. He said a bone-headed comment. Lott was what, 7 years old in 1948? You are GIVING the senate back to the dems by demanding Lott resign.

I have never seen one Freeper ask Lott to leave the Senate. We just don't want him leading our party. We will retain a 2-vote majority.

However. If we keep Lott as our leader, we will most likely lose the Senate and the House in 2004. It's not just the minority vote. White, middle-of-the-road voters will not support a party they perceive to be tolerant of racism.

Why on earth is Lott -- who has brought this party nothing but failure and incompetence -- worth squandering our fragile majority? Especially since he will spend all his time pandering to the Maxine Waters' of the world?

"You DO understand that this campaign was waged in 1948, don't you? You are also aware, I assume that we are nearing the end of the year 2002. What is your obsession with this matter?"

I can't speak for Granite State, to whom the above comment is apparently addressed -- but I think most of us do understand that. That's why we can't figure out why Trent Lott thought fit, in 2002, to endorse the principles of 1948 -- or even to appear to endorse those principles. I don't think it's a slip of the tongue. I think it's what Lott reallly believes. It's not like Lott has not said similar things already. Back in 1980 he was claiming we'd be better off if the Dixiecrats had won in '48.

The excuse I've most often heard this time around is that he was simply honoring an old man who's nearing the end of a distinguished career. But he could easily have expressed appreciation for Thurmond (who's done many things since his Dixiecrat candidacy) without invoking the ghosts of segregationism past. So I must conclude he meant what he said. To say otherwise is to imply that he's a fool, which he is not.

And if anybody's "obsessing" about this issue, it's Lott and these Southern Partisan types, who simply can't get over their noble and beloved "Lost Cause." Really, it is past time for OUR party, the true Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln, to give up its latter day Confederate wing.

I care if the guy representing my party in the Senate as its leader is a bigot. Why didn't he talk about how proud he was that Thurmond repudiated those views from back then? That would have been an honorable tribute.

"Strom was a segregationist once and once I was, too. We have both come to realize that every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals." Imagine if he'd have said that. What a powerful statement that would have been.

Lott "spontaneously" said the same damn thing 22 years ago. He probably said it in college, too, when he acknowledges that he was a segregationist. He probably has said it many times behind closed doors, too.

Get real. Lott will NOT be helpful to a party that has abandon him in his hour of need. The senate has slipped through our fingers yet once again. HE IS HUMAN people!! He said a few things he had not thought out at a BIRTHDAY PARTY!! He is NOT a racist, not a bigot. He is human and he messed up. He apologized a million times and you STILL WON'T LET IT GO.

Never have I seen so many idiots on FR. You people are a bunch of morons, this has nothing to do with racism, it is all about the dems last, desperate power grab after they LOST on Nov. 5th.

WHY ARE YOU SO BLIND??

When he leaves the senate, guess who gets to appoint the new senator from Mississippi??? That's right, a democrap.

Really, it is past time for OUR party, the true Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln, to give up its latter day Confederate wing.

What I don't understand is why Lott said what he did. On some level he must have thought it politically beneficial to give a sop to a pro-segregation lobby. Does he actually think such a lobby exists and that it is a sizable group? How lost in the past do you have to be to think that?

I am not here to say if he is or isn't a racist in his heart. But anyone who says what he says and thinks as he does shouldn't be the public face of the 2002 GOP. We're going to pay dearly for his ignorance and get zero in return.

If Lott steps down from majority leader, why should he stay in the senate?? If he is too prejudiced to be the majority leader, isn't he also too prejudiced to be a senator???

If Lott steps down, the controversy is over. If Dems overplay their hand and call for his removal from the Senate, we, as the majority, will first demand the Democrats remove Byrd and Hollings. Issue done.

Whether or not Lott is a senator is for the state of Mississippi to decide. Whether or not he should represent the entire GOP is for the GOP to decide.

Lott used to be a dem. Guess what party wanted segregation? That's right, DEMS.

People change. Hillary used to be a Goldwater Republican. So What? Trent Lott is an adult now. He was 22 at the oldest when he was in college. I can't even remember the bone-headed things I did when I was 22. But I am sure that if I ran for office, people like you would dig up any crap they could. Trent Lott is a gentleman right now, and a good public servant. He apologized and explained himself numerous times, but i don't see you posting any of those transcripts here. No, you keep going back in time to dig up dirt.

Yeah 22 years ago. Once every 22 years. Probably says it behind closed doors all the time, too. Yes the spoken word is the capital form of thought crime. If we catch people saying the wrong things we can cut their right hand off (take away their livelihood) just like Islam.
So what has he done for the last 22 years? I think that is a better measure.

Many people here believe that states have the right to tell people what they can put in their body, even if the Federal government does not. I wonder if those same people would argue that the state does not have the right to tell people whom they can and cannot marry.

States have no rights, only powers. They don't get those powers, for the most part, from the Federal government, nor from the Federal Constitution. They get them from the people of the state via the state Constitution. While I oppose the states having those particular powers, I don't see any power given to the federal government, any branch, to take them away if the people of the state give them to the state government, unless they violate the rights of citizens of the United States as protected by the bill of rights and the 14th amendment. Even then, only the "guarantee of republican government" clause (Art IV Sec 4 US Constitution) gives the federal government any power in the matter.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.